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Flying domestic? OK good, get ready to smush yourself into a
cramped, uncomfortable seat for the duration of the flight. And
that's not just my humble opinion: I have research on my
side, research that confirms American airline seats are the most
uncomfortable seats in the world.

It's extra bad, then, when the person in front of you on a flight
decides to take away the one comfort you have left – some
semblance of legroom – with the fell recline of his or her seat.

Sensing an opportunity, a company named Gadget Duck created a
provocative device that allows travelers to reclaim their
legroom. Called the Knee Defender, it consists of key-sized
plastic claws that latch onto the arms of your tray table, thus
preventing the passenger in front of you from reclining his or
her seat.

Sound controversial? That's because the Knee Defender most
certainly is -- controversial enough, in fact, that it sparked an
in-flight fight between two frustrated passengers and diverted an
entire plane.

The showdown occurred this Sunday, according to the Associated Press, when a
man on his laptop in row 12 of a United Airlines flight from
Newark, N.J., to Denver, Colo., rebuffed a stewardess' request
to unclamp his Knee Defender and allow the women in front of
him to recline her seat.

The woman in front of him was having none of it: According to a
law official, she promptly got up and threw a cup of water at the
man and his laptop. Things escalated enough from there that the
plane was diverted to Chicago’s O’Hare international airport,
where both passengers were questioned by local police.

While the Knee Defender is not banned by the Federal Aviation
Administration – the agency allows individual airlines to
implement rules regarding the clamp -- most airlines have issued
a blanket ban on the device, including United Airlines.

Perhaps this could have all been avoided if the man in row 12 had
simply handed the women in front of him a "Courtesy Card,"
available for print and download on the Gadget Duck website,
which reads: “I realize that this may be an inconvenience. If so,
I hope you will complain to the airline. Maybe working together
we can convince the airlines to provide enough space between
rows.”